Simply put, you want to make your hard days hard, and your easy days easy.
Zwift can be addicting, that’s for sure. And it’s a healthy addiction to have… until it’s not! (I know this from personal experience–I hit Zwift hard in my first 3 months before I noticed my power numbers dropping in races. Taking a week off helped me get back on my feet.)
Be sure to give your body time to recover between hard rides; otherwise your training efforts will become mediocre and thus less effective. And if you keep pushing long enough, you’ll overtrain and be forced to take extended time off! Remember: you don’t get stronger during the workout. You get stronger during the recovery.
If your riding schedule includes racing on Zwift, consider racing no more than three times per week, with recovery rides, days off, and lighter training in between. And even if your training load is more steady (with few “race day efforts”) taking a day or two for recovery per week is smart.
Lastly, taking an “easy week” every ~4 weeks is a common practice in many structured programs.
#2: Miscalibrated Power
Serious Zwift training requires the use of a power meter. On Zwift you can get accurate power numbers by using a standard power meter or a smart trainer which calculates your power output. Either way, make sure your power meter or smart trainer is calibrated properly so your power numbers are accurate!
Even something as small as calibrating with a cold tire can make a difference of 20-30w, which can mess up your training intervals and reduce the effectiveness of your workouts.
You typically sweat more on indoor rides than outdoor due to reduced air movement and increased effort (which reminds me: get a fan). That pool of sweat beneath your bike and that condensation on your windows is all fluid from your body that you need to replace before bad things happen.
So make sure you drink plenty of water–but not just water. Make sure whatever you drink also replaces the electrolytes you’re losing.
How much you need to drink depends on your physiology and effort level, but 25-45 ounces per hour is a typical range.
Here are a few popular electrolyte drink mixes for cyclists:
It is tempting to hop on the trainer and go hard, then hop off once you’re done. But a proper warmup helps your body prepare for a solid effort, and a nice cooldown is the first step towards recovering from the ride you just finished. So don’t skip either of these portions of your workout!
Warmups and cooldowns should last at least 5 minutes, but 10-20 minutes or more may work even better for you.
If you are truly wanting to train on Zwift, and not just ride for pleasure, you need to go into each ride with a plan. Otherwise, you risk riding too hard (or not hard enough) or too long (or not long enough). When your miles aren’t doing anything to help meet your fitness goals they are just junk miles.
When you have a training plan in place, each ride you take is done with a specific goal in mind: building sprint power, increasing aerobic endurance, recovering, etc. If you have a hard time avoiding junk miles, consider jumping into one of Zwift’s training plans, or paying a coach to plan your training.
New to training and want a good resource? Look no further than these two books:
Rouleur Magazine recently released an episode of its Longreads Podcast, centered around a day spent in a London studio with Mathieu van der Poel and a copious film crew to find out why Zwift is leading the way in the market.
The Rouleur Longreads Podcast brings you selected long-form articles from the magazine, especially recorded for Rouleur. Written by Ian Cleverly and published in Rouleur 20.2, this episode was read by George Oliver.
Zwift’s Volcano Circuit (and Volcano Circuit CCW) are popular routes for racers looking for a flat, fast, multi-lap effort. But did you know there are badges (and bonus XP) awarded for multi-lap efforts, and newer Zwifters can use these achievements to jump up several levels in one ride?
Here’s everything you need to know about how these achievements work!
Key Stats: Ride Length and Bonus XP
The “Warmed Up” badge is awarded for 5 laps, “Hothead” for 10 laps, and “On Fire!” for 25 laps. Each badge also awards 1000XP, helping you level up faster!
With a lap length of 4 km (2.5 miles), you’ll have to ride a minimum distance of 20.4 km (12.7 miles), 40.9 km (25.4 miles), and 102.2 km (63.5 miles) to get each badge, respectively.
All in One Ride
To earn a multi-lap Volcano Circuit badge, you must ride all the laps in one activity. So these badges are very different from the “Avid Climber” and “Masochist” badges you earn for climbing Alpe du Zwift multiple times – happily, the Alpe badges can be earned over multiple efforts!
It’s worth noting that these laps can be completed at any time during your single activity, even if you ride elsewhere on Watopia in between laps. So you could ride a few Volcano Circuit laps, then hit the classic Hilly route for a lap or two, then return to the Volcano Circuit for more laps. Two warnings here, though:
Don’t hop into an event in the middle of your activity, because Zwift automatically stops your current activity and starts a new one whenever you begin an official event. That means your multi-lap attempt will end as soon as you click to join the event.
If you decide to turn and ride up the Volcano KOM in the middle of a lap, that particular lap won’t count.
Any Direction
Here’s another little-known detail: you can achieve the Volcano Circuit badges in either direction. In fact, you can mix directions, completing (for example) 2 laps in the clockwise direction, and 3 in the counter-clockwise direction.
The counter at the lap banner keeps a tally of how many laps you’ve completed in both directions, making it easy to know how many laps you’ve got left.
There’s also a “100 Clicks” badge awarded the first time you ride 100 km in one activity. If you complete 25 Volcano Circuit laps you will hit 100 km, unlocking this badge and 500XP bonus if you haven’t done so already.
Level Up
For newer Zwifters looking to level up, the multi-lap achievement is the fastest way to grab a pile of XP whenever you’re ready. Not only will you get all the XP for your distance (20XP per km = 2000XP for 100 km), but you will receive another 4000XP for the three Volcano badges and the 100 Clicks badge. That’s 5500XP, not included any bonuses you may receive each time you ride through the lap arch!
Join Us this Saturday!
This Saturday, April 25th, we’re hosting an informal event where Zwifters can show up and ride to achieve their Volcano Circuit badges whenever they’d like.
But I hadn’t actually participated in a ZHQ Beta Race, until today. Not only was I itching for a quick, tough race – I also wanted to see how the current sandbagging controls affected the out-of-category riding which has become more prominent thanks to the recent, massive influx of new Zwifters. Time to see the green cones of shame firsthand. Let’s race!
The Warmup
The race was at 8 am, which really isn’t an ideal time for me. Too late for my typical fasted morning ride, and right when I’m usually getting into my workday. But it had to be done. For science! So I chewed my caffeine gum – 2 pieces this time, and well before the race, because I’ve recently read that caffeine should be taken about 1 hour before the big effort. And of course I rubbed some PR lotion into my legs, to take the edge off the burn and help me push to my max.
I headed to Tempus Fugit for my typical warmup, and just as I was starting to get the legs warm my lovely wife Monica texted me: “Are you riding right now?” Apparently we’d had some miscommunication, and she was planning on riding Zwift in a few minutes. (While we have both of our own bikes set up, we only have one big-screen TV in the Zwift room). Since she had called first dibs, I moved my Zwift session over to my office computer, which meant a quick monitor move and game startup to get a session started there. A bit more warmup, then it was time to head to the start pens.
The Start
There were 102 riders in the B pack, and as we hit the first of our 12 Downtown Dolphin laps it became clear that this was going to be a tough race. Was it tough because my legs were more tired than anticipated, or were riders pushing the pace at the front? I wasn’t entirely sure, but I knew I was suffering! Instead of sitting in a few wheels from the front, I was struggling to hold onto the back of the pack, shamelessly tailgunning.
Luckily, tailgunning on Zwift doesn’t cause the sort of effort “accordion” effect that it does outdoors. It didn’t take long for me to see a pattern form in my pack positioning: I would work my way closer to the front up the brick prime climb, then drift back as we made our way down the twisty descent. Then I would move forward again as we hit the lap banner and made our way up the false flat toward the eSports stage.
Our first cone!
Green Cone Observation
I expected some green cones to show up after the first minute of racing, since the cone can be triggered by both 1-minute and 5-minute power. But we didn’t see any cones until the second lap, almost 4 minutes in, when one virtual-powered “L.Santamaria” got flagged.
By the third lap, 7 minutes into the race, several more green cones had appeared. Despite my high level of personal suffering, I couldn’t help but try to watch these coned riders, to see how Zwift’s “throttling” would affect their position in the race.
Most of the coned riders slowly drifted out of our front pack and into oblivion. But a couple stayed with our front group, and I made a mental note to check into their power numbers once the race ended. Because I wanted to find out: what sort of power did a B need to hold to stay with the front pack, even after their power was throttled by Zwift’s green cone of shame? More on this later!
More cones flying…
The Middle
5 laps in and our group of 102 starters had been whittled down to just 22. This was a tough race! As Monica spun her way around the Watopian desert in zone 2, my heart rate was squarely in zone 4, where it would stay for 92.9% of the race according to Strava.
My max heart rate is ~189, and most Zwift races find me averaging somewhere between 167-172BPM. Today’s average? 177. Was it the extra caffeine, taken a little early? Perhaps. Was it the fast race pace? Certainly a factor!
Garbage Thinking
Gaps opened up ahead of me occasionally, but I was always able to close them down before getting dropped. It was hard work, though, and as we passed the 20-minute mark my mind shifted from envisioning an incredible final sprint to wondering if I’d even be in the mix for end!
But this is just garbage thinking, right? For me at least, these thoughts occur in almost every Zwift race. I find myself on the limit, struggling to grab a wheel, and somehow think I’m the only one suffering. But of course that wasn’t the case. 80% of the field had already been dropped, and certainly most of the riders in this front pack were suffering just like I was.
Everyone is hurting. This is something I have to remind myself as I race on Zwift. Doing so gives me hope – hope that I’ll be able to hang on until the end. Hope that maybe, just maybe, I’ll have a little bit more left than the next guy at the end. Hope for the elusive race win.
The End
With only 4 laps to go the front pack still held two green cones: “T.Gumpo” and “L.Santamaria”. Knowing they wouldn’t show up in final results on ZwiftPower, I just hoped they didn’t jump off the front and pull a legit racer to victory.
The final laps flew by, and soon enough the crazy last lap was upon us. I knew the drill by this point: everyone would jump hard on the prime bricks, then it was a question of surfing the wheels and staying near the front down the twisties before hitting the sprint with whatever I had left. I had a truck powerup, so I waited until I was ~30 seconds from the finish before triggering it, using the increased draft to work my way through the riders as we all gutted out the final meters.
I was in the drops, out of the saddle, head down, putting everything I had into my 50/11. Monica was my eyes, watching the screen and yelling “Keep pushing, go go go, you’re almost there!”
When I crossed the line, I looked up at the results: 4th place. And two of those ahead were obvious sandbaggers. Does that mean I got 2nd place? I headed to ZwiftPower to confirm: 2nd place it was. First loser! But I was happy with the result, given how difficult the race had been.
Looking at my Strava power curve for this race, I set some new PRs for power in the 27-31 minute range. So my legs were in good shape – it was just a super tough race.
This race is a good example of an event where my body wanted to quit, and my mind supported the idea. But I kept pushing, and finished in second place. Just .048 seconds from a win!
So the takeaway from this race is: do away with garbage thinking. Perhaps it’s time for me to dig into sports psychology a bit – a little mental training may do me good.
Sandbagging Details from ZwiftHQ
I reached out to Jordan Rapp, the game designer at Zwift HQ who is working to bring sandbagging controls to fruition. I asked him for more info on what happens when a racer receives the green cone of shame in these beta races. Is their speed artificially slowed, perhaps by increased Crr? Is their power actually reduced, like Zwift’s warning message indicates?
Jordan said, “Zwift is currently throttling power. We never touch the speed inferred from power (output). Only the power (input). There are some changes to how MUCH we throttle power coming in the next release.”
The level of power throttling was something I wanted more info on. Was it high enough, if two of the coned riders could stay with our front group until almost the end of the race? (Those two coned riders, by the way, averaged 6.4 w/kg // 480w and 6.0 w/kg // 447w for the race. Ha!) I asked Jordan if he was going to be increasing the power throttling, and he said:
“Yes, a LOT more. We’re bumping up the baseline throttling (and also making it easier to tune). And we’re adding in a multiplier that looks at how egregiously you broke the limits. An A racer in a D race will get hit a lot harder than a C racer in a D race.”
Sounds smart to me! I’m excited for Zwift’s next release, which I hear is just around the corner (next week or two). I know I speak for many other racers in saying I’m looking forward to seeing the green cones make their way into other races. If Zwift’s new sandbagging controls can eliminate most of the negative effects of racers riding below their proper category (and I think they can), it will be a huge upgrade to the Zwift race experience.
Your Thoughts
Have you ridden in a ZHQ Beta Race recently? How was it? Have you been coned yourself? Share your experience below!
Kevin Bouchard Hall is a top Zwift racer with TeamX and a top dad. He recently sat in with retired pro rider Ted King (newbie Zwift racer and neo Dad) to share tips on how to perform best in Zwift races.
Kevin is a former US national team stand-out, but he decided that unless he was making it to the Pro Tour, he’d rely on his intelligence to move forward in life. So he stepped away from cycling for a while. Now he’s back on the scene, but storming Zwift at all odd hours of the day because he’s married with two sons, and the Bouchard Hall family is busy as it gets!
As the duo participate in a 1-lap race of the Richmond 2015 UCI course, Kevin shares spot-on tips to help Ted stay with the front pack and in contention as long as possible. Their banter is entertaining to watch, but also educational for newer Zwift racers. Check it out!
Zwift has just announced an unprecedented second Watopia Run Festival for 2020. While February’s festival was only 2 days long, April’s will be a full week!
Make it a fun run, or push yourself to the limit. It’s up to you! While there’s no podium at the end of the Watopia Run Festival, each event will show a finishing order once completed.
Events
There are four different event lengths to choose from throughout the week, with a fifth (full marathon) length available on the last day of the festival. Zwift says, “We know that lots of you trained unbelievably hard for a spring marathon and are looking to put that hard work to the test. Here’s your chance.”
Today, Zwift released an update for the Companion mobile app which expands Meetup capabilities in two key ways.
Available now for iOS and Android, Companion version 3.13 allows us to choose any open Zwift map for our Meetups, and expands the invite limit from 50 to 100.Two bits of happy news for Zwift Meetup organizers!
6 Different Worlds
We can now schedule Meetups on any of the 6 “open” maps at any day/time. That means all open routes on Watopia, London, New York, Richmond, Innsbruck, or Yorkshire are available for our Meetups! (Crit City and Bologna are only used for official Zwift events at this time.)
This will be very welcome news to Zwifters for at least two reasons:
Complete control over route choice: With 67 different routes available on the 6 open maps, you’ll always be able to find a route that suits your fancy! Meetup map options are no longer restricted by the guest map schedule, and that’s a very good thing.
Less crowding: if a guest map isn’t on the guest map schedule, there will be very few riders using it. Surely savvy schedulers will look at the guest map schedule and select “off-schedule” maps where there will be fewer riders on course, allowing their Meetup to feel more like a “group-only” event. This is an especially big deal for Meetups which don’t enable the “Keep Everyone Together” option because it’s easy for riders to get spread out and lost on a busy road.
World Hacking Through Meetups!
Zwifters have been “world hacking” (finding ways to ride in off-schedule maps) for years. One side benefit of this Meetups change is it gives you the ability to “world hack” without needing to edit your prefs.xml file. Just schedule a Meetup… for yourself… on whatever route you want to ride! Then join it and ride it.
If you’re looking to grab a particular route badge, or ride on a less-populated world, Meetups may be your ticket – especially if you’re on AppleTV, where world hacking is next to impossible!
Note: you have to invite at least one person to create a Meetup. Easy! Invite a friend or spouse who follows you, and put a note in the event so they know it’s not a real invite.They don’t have to accept the invite for you to ride the Meetup. 😋
Double the Invites, Double the Fun
We used to be restricted to inviting 50 followers to our Meetups, but that has been doubled to 100. This is certainly due to community feedback as more and more clubs are using the Meetup feature to create group events, and some were bumping into that invite limit.
Doubling it to 100 should satisfy the needs of the vast majority of Meetups, but if you’re finding you need even more, let your voice be heard by in this thread.
Too Many Invites?
One possible negative side effect of this change is we may all begin receiving more Meetup invites that we aren’t interested in, as riders organize Meetups and select more riders from their list of followers. Pro tip: if you don’t want to get these Meetup invites, the easiest thing to do is simply unfollow the person who keeps sending you invites!
Other Changes
The Companion update also included unspecified “Meetup invite improvements.” We aren’t sure what these are, but hopefully part of the improvement is to make the invites pop up more reliably. (A recent game change made Meetup invites pop up earlier in game, which is also a welcome change.)
Also: Zwift is working hard on the Clubs feature! This update included unspecified but “numerous” Zwift Clubs fixes and improvements. We know many clubs out there are looking forward to being able to use these features soon, so it’s good to see continued progress being made.
What’s Next?
There are several Meetup features which Zwifters ask for regularly, including:
Late Join: this is by far the most requested Meetups feature, because we’re cyclists, and there’s always that late guy.
Culled Meetups: hiding all non-Meetup riders would allow you to truly track the location of other participants without the distraction of other riders on the road. Especially important in competitive rides!
Easier Invites: being able to simply post a link for people to click and join the Meetup, instead of requiring someone to follow you before the invite. This hasn’t been implemented due to concerns about spamming, but it’s still a common request because the current invite system is a hassle!
Group Workouts in Meetups: selecting a workout for all Meetup participants to do together. This can be done currently as a hack, but it would be nice if this could be incorporated into the Meetup system.
Ranking in Meetups: show your placing during the Meetup and once it finishes. This would allow you to hold simple races. Combine this with the culling feature explained above and you’ll have groups holding simple races all over the place!
Zwift is asking for our feedback on what Meetup features we most want, so be sure to visit this forum thread and chime in with your thoughts!
Your Thoughts
What do you think of these changes? And what would you like to see next? Share below, but more importantly, chime in on Wes’ forum thread and let your voice be heard!
We’re growing pretty used to seeing Zwift records smashed in these peculiar times. Peak Zwift. The most Zwifters in an event. New Zwifter surge. All these are hitting previously unseen levels.
But have we just seen yet another record tumble? When Owen Newbury posted a picture on Zwift Riders of his scheme to project Zwift onto the side of his house, it rapidly garnered 2,000 likes. And last time we checked it was over 2,400 likes.
We’re not sure, we think that might be yet another record. Owen talked to the Zwiftcast about the plan.
“I just thought why not?” said Owen. “I mentioned it to my dad and he agreed it was worth a try, so we got on with it.” Owen was quick to add: ”But it was my idea though!”
Owen’s family had invested in a projector a little while ago, a model from the Sony Data range but it hadn’t seen much use… until Owen and his Dad set it up in the garden, hooked up a laptop via HDMI and focused Zwift on the side of their – happily white-painted – house.
“We had to try a number of angles, but I was pretty happy with the one we ended up with,” says Owen, an experienced Zwifter.
The project, in Owen’s family home in the North East of England, quickly drew a crowd of neighbours keen for a break from the routine of Lockdown. “People seemed to enjoy watching,” says Owen. “I felt like I was in the Tour de France”.
I asked Owen, who Zwifted on several pleasant, dry evenings in the garden, whether a crowd put him under pressure to put the hammer down but he told me he explained to his neighbours that he was on a strict training plan and that he’d be concentrating on his intervals.
A few who posted comments on Owen’s brilliant project commented that the light was shining in on what looked like a bedroom window. “It’s OK”, said Owen, “it’s my bedroom.”
You can hear from Owen and a special guest appearance from Zwift Insider Editor Eric Schlange on this week’s Zwiftcast.
With more big events than ever happening in our virtual cycling paradise, it’s easy to miss some really cool rides! Here are 5+ events this weekend that you won’t want to miss.
See you on course!
Israel Start-Up Nation Medical Aid Ride
The primary purpose of this ride is to raise funds to secure N95 masks for hospitals in need. One Zwifter counts for one mask! The more people who join, the bigger the donation will be. Tell your friends, and ride for a good cause.
Pro cyclists Alex Dowsett, Dan Martin, and Andre Greipel will each lead separate groups at different paces, so everyone can find a group for their fitness level.
Movistar Team Innsbruck UCI Worlds Ride with Alejandro Valverde
Join legendary pro cyclist Alejandro Valverde of the Movistar Team and relive his 2018 UCI Road World Championship win in Innsbruck!
This is a social ride with a climbing challenge at the end. All riders should cruise at a social pace for 30km allowing time for Q&A with Alejandro. At the base of the Innsbruck KOM climb, the group will be let loose to climb to the finish 7.5km away.
Newbury Velo’s weekend TT events have become popular quite quickly. It’s a short TT (around 10 miles), so you can do it as part of a longer Saturday if you’d like. No marshalls, no signup fee. Just sign up and show up before your start time (which you get when you sign up, in Zwift Companion). Drafting is disabled, and TT bikes aren’t required – but they are recommended!
Note: the event is currently limited to 500 riders, so sign up quick! (Race organizers tell me this is a Zwift event setting issue which will hopefully be changed starting next weekend.)
Weekends are traditional times for long rides, and it’s no different on Zwift! Why not hop into a big group ride this weekend? Here are several which vary in length from a metric century to an imperial. Be sure to click and read pace details and other info – you don’t want to join a long ride that doesn’t meet your needs/abilities!
Doing a long ride is one thing. But what about pushing max effort during a long ride – doing a long race? Here are four long races scheduled for the weekend:
Got other events that stand out this weekend? Share below in the comments! And if you participate in any of these events, let us know how your ride went.
